Coolers are used by many to keep beverages and snacks cool in any conditions. Often considered essential equipment by tailgaters, campers, hunters, fishermen, as well as in any situation that requires the cooling of beverages in general, such as on planes or in bars, the cooler allows a user to protect an item or items from exposure to conditions that are hot or otherwise undesirable. A cooler user may place ice or ice packs within a cooler in order to lower the temperature of the contained area, then add several beverages or other items to be kept cold, before closing the lid and transporting the cooler to a new location. The items would remain chilled during transportation.
However, available coolers have several drawbacks. As ice, ice packs, and objects are added to the cooler, the weight of the cooler quickly increases. This hinders the ability of the user to transport the cooler from location to location. Coolers are necessarily large and bulky in order to transport large quantities of items, and generally utilize handles to facilitate transportation. The handles, however, do not help a user when the cooler contents are particularly dense or heavy, as is the case for transporting beverages in heavy containers. Even coolers equipped with sets of wheels are not truly enabled to move the cooler with convenience, as the wheels often do not come with a convenient handle to provide appropriate leverage to the cooler. The wheels of such coolers are rarely adapted to a variety of conditions, making them less than useful when traveling over sand, ice, mud, and other loose surfaces. In addition, coolers grow even heavier as condensation and ice melting cause water to collect within the cooler container. The melting of ice and collection of condensation also has the undesirable effect of making all of the contained items damp, which makes it more difficult for a user to bring snack items that are open or otherwise vulnerable to spoilage by water exposure. As the melting increases, if the user has not packed enough ice, the ability of the cooler to keep products cool decreases, resulting in potentially warm or spoiled items. Once a user arrives with the heavy cooler, the user must locate all of the items one by one before removing them, a task made more difficult by the presence of ice packs, water, and other items. This may be even more difficult for a user at night, when the darkness makes it difficult to read labels and distinguish between cans or bags of food. When a user opens a bottle of soda or a can of beer, the carbonation decreases, and the user has to drink the beverage quickly in order to ensure beverage quality.
What is needed is a cooler that is easy to transport regardless of conditions or weight. What is further needed is a cooler that can collect and dispense water resulting from melted ice and condensation as a means of reducing the weight of the cooler, while efficiently providing the user or users the resultant fresh, cold water. Further, a cooler that can assist in the selection and dispensing of beverages in any lighting conditions is also beneficial. A cooler that can separate snacks and food from liquids, and that can simultaneously extend the carbonated life of beverages once opened, is also needed. A cooler with a conveniently renewable energy supply that can be used to power electronic devices would further be of great use to a user who is in need of such electric power.